Saya tambah lagi dari ayat terakhir pengadu - Or, maybe, I am not grateful - dengan "Or maybe I have to wait until the end of my service term (bond with sponsorship) before I make my move to overseas."

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I AM a professor. Perhaps I suffer from grandiosity but I would like to believe that in the last 20 years or so since I became an academic, after studying for many years locally and abroad to obtain a doctoral degree, I have contributed to nation-building.

I taught undergraduate and postgraduate professional courses that helped produce doctors, pharmacists, nurses and others.

I supervised and graduated local and international scientists at the master's, PhD and post-doctoral levels, performing research and made friends with some renowned researchers.

I thought people like me -- the academics -- have contributed much to the nation.

However, every day I hear news about efforts to bring home Malaysian scientists from abroad to help in nation-building, giving them one incentive after another.

I also hear about how much teachers have contributed and how pivotal their roles are in training our human resources. Said to have been neglected before, they are now showered with reward after reward and perks.

I am just wondering if indeed we academics have not contributed and if our needs have always been taken care of.

Returning scientists are given rebates and provided with facilities to continue contributing.

This is presumably over and above the perks that are better than perks given to academics who had opted to return home after completing their studies abroad, some from renowned universities as well, thinking that their nation needed them more than the employers abroad who were willing to pay them several times more than what they would have earned if they returned home.

And then "super" and "great" teachers are given salaries in the civil service's "Jusa" category, salaries that are beyond the reach of many academics except those who become professors after years of studies, teaching, research and publications.

Perhaps, I should have opted not to get higher degrees to teach in universities. I should have just stopped at my first degree and become a teacher and be rewarded equally well, if not better, and get the opportunity to teach in tuition classes earning an additional RM10,000 (yes, my teacher friend gets RM12,000 a month teaching Mathematics and Physics in tuition classes at his home).

Or perhaps, I should have remained abroad to enjoy the good salary and life there and only return now to Malaysia for the many rewards that await me.

Riyadhus Solihin

Chapter 193Strict Orders for Observance of Obligatory Salat

Hadith 1076Ibn `Umar (May Allah be pleased with them) reported: The Messenger of Allah(PBUH) said, "I have been commanded to fight against the people till they testify La ilaha illAllah (There is no true god except Allah) and that Muhammad (PBUH) is His slave and Messenger, and to establish As-Salat (Iqamat-as-Salat), and to pay Zakat; and if they do this, then their blood and property are secured except by the rights of Islam, and their accountability is left to Allah."[Al-Bukhari and Muslim].